She stumbled to the couch and put her face in her hands. She wanted to scream and laugh and sleep all at once. Laurian was with her, all of a sudden, sitting close but not touching. He said nothing, but somehow Jane knew it wasn’t because of his trouble with words. He said nothing because there was nothing that could be said.
Jane looked up toward the viewscreen again. She could see satellites out there, glinting with sunlight. She could see them turn towards her ship.
‘You sure we have nothing to worry about?’ she whispered.
Laurian nodded. He made a curve with his hand, and gestured down through it with his index finger. Jane understood. He’d explained this before – the Enhanced weren’t as concerned with people heading out as they were with people heading in, and there weren’t any orbital launch sites on the part of the planet where the factories were. There were defence patrols that could come after, but by the time they realised what was happening, the shuttle would be out of reach.
The satellites grew smaller, and the planet did, too, bit by bit. It was so lonely, so exposed out there. Just like their ship. Just like its passengers.
Jane put her hand on Laurian’s, and looked at Owl’s nearest camera. ‘No matter what happens next,’ she said, ‘no matter where we go, we’re all going together.’
SIDRA
Blue wasn’t at the noodle bar, nor the art supply depot. He was right where Pepper had hoped he would be: standing behind his easel, hands and apron spattered with paint, a thump box blasting music as he worked. He looked up with congenial surprise as Pepper and Sidra entered. Tak had parted ways with them at the travel kiosk, saying that this was a ‘family affair’. Sidra felt privileged to be included in such a thing, but she stayed a few steps behind Pepper anyway. Pepper needed her space right now.
‘Well, hey,’ Blue said, gesturing the thump box into silence. ‘What’s going—’ His smile faded. Sidra couldn’t see the look on Pepper’s face, but whatever it was, it changed everything for Blue. ‘What’s going on?’ he said with a frown.
For as much as Pepper had talked on the way there, she didn’t seem to know what to say now. ‘Someone found it,’ she said at last, her voice sounding like it belonged to someone else.
Blue didn’t understand. He glanced at Sidra, then back to Pepper. ‘Someone found wh—’ His eyes grew wide. ‘No way.’
Pepper nodded. ‘Someone on Picnic.’ She took a deep breath. ‘They found my ship.’
Part 3
CIRCLE
JANE, AGE 19
These weren’t her blankets, and this wasn’t her bed. She’d been aware of this before she woke up, but not in a clear way, not in a way that made sense. Nothing had made sense for a long time. There’d been days and days of dreams, or things that weren’t dreams but might as well have been. Monsters and voices and pain. The kind of sleep that ached rather than soothed. But she was aware of the bed now, the bed that wasn’t hers. That was good. That was a start.
Everything was so clean. That was the next thing she noticed. The bed was comfortable, though a weird shape – much bigger than she was, and with grooves for limbs she didn’t have. Some kind of shield hugged the area around it, a crackling see-through purple. She couldn’t make out any machine sounds that she knew. She heard nothing breaking, nothing wearing down. Just the gentle hum of things working as they should in a clean, white, safe room.
She couldn’t remember the last time she’d been so scared.
A hazy memory surfaced: something uncomfortable involving her right arm. Her left hand drifted over to investigate. Her fingers met metal. She threw the blankets back and brought her arm to her face. A neat row of round black sucker things were embedded in her skin, each holding a small plex chamber half-full of different colours of liquid – some clear, some yellowish, one blue. She stared, pulse racing. Something within each of the suckers made a synchronised click. A little bit of each liquid disappeared. Disappeared into her.
She nearly yelled, but before the sound could leave her mouth, she noticed something else: a small square patch implanted in her forearm, just below the heel of her palm. A wristpatch. Alain and Manjiri had wristpatches. Everybody in the GC had wristpatches.
‘Hey!’ She was yelling now, sitting up as best as she could. ‘Hey!’ Stars and fire, where was she?
There was a flurry of footsteps, and – oh, shit. An alien. There was an alien. An Aandrisk. Oh, shit.
‘Whoa, it’s okay,’ the Aandrisk said. Jane scrambled, trying to remember all Owl had taught her. He. This Aandrisk was a he. He was tall, and wearing a full biosuit. She could see his feathers tucked back and away from his face under the helmet. The Aandrisk gestured at a control panel. The shield around Jane’s bed switched off long enough for him to step through, then resumed its position. He spoke toward a vox on the wall. ‘Get the rep in here,’ he said, then turned his attention back to Jane. ‘It’s okay. You’re safe. Can you understand me?’
‘Yes,’ Jane said, clutching the covers close. Holy shit, he looked weird.
‘Do you speak Klip?’